Review: Nicolas Wise + mise_en_scene – Introjection

It won’t be long before the form and function of the digital realm starts to leak out of its square screens, beyond the hard lines that currently render it distinct from the corporeal. To me, Introjection sounds like that chaotic moment of connection between the digital and physical, where objects start to flicker and transform via an unpredictable sequence of binary rendering; my brain starts to peel in half, suddenly unable to adapt anticipation and habit to comprehend each in turn, and I freeze in a state of ubiquitous distrust and paralysis. I hear fragments of sound that I recognise – the chime of a struck glass, bubbles forming and bursting within a gelatinous liquid – yet they move in digitised jerks and sudden teleportations, spinning across a spectrum of fracture and pixelated detail.

Everything feels unstable, like an electric fence I’m scared to touch. Serrated electronics zip past my ears like tiny robot gnats, while synthesisers sweep upward and announce sudden onsets of quiet, as though zipping me up inside a thick coat. Voices are crushed like drinks cans, drones rest upon concrete like dropped torches or maybe alien sonar, feedback seeps out like whales wading through magma. The soundscape is transforming all of the time; shards of physical impact drop off and synths palpitate with fear or maybe an excessive electrical charge. At points, I am more frightened than I’ve been in months. “The Sneaking Towards The Nucleus Accumbens” begins like footage of a rollercoaster ascent glitching and looping back on itself, before the second half jolts me sideways with crooked banshee wails and the stomps of something horrible in an adjacent room. A paranoid and volatile work that turns me into a paranoid and volatile listener.